Former porn producer speaks at Coolbaugh church

Sunday

Feb 28, 2010 at 12:01 AMFeb 28, 2010 at 12:49 AM

When he began working as a pornography producer 13 years ago, Donny Pauling could not have imagined that he would one day find himself joining more than 160 other men in a church dining room on a Saturday morning in Pennsylvania to talk about the dangers of pornography addiction.

ADAM McNAUGHTON

When he began working as a pornography producer 13 years ago, Donny Pauling could not have imagined that he would one day find himself joining more than 160 other men in a church dining room on a Saturday morning in Pennsylvania to talk about the dangers of pornography addiction.

Pauling was the guest speaker at the Pocono Community Church in Coolbaugh Township during a "Porn and Pancakes" men's discussion breakfast to join Pastor David Crosby Jr. to talk about how pornography can come to dominate — and ruin — lives.

"I was making over a half a million dollars a year but I was seeing all the devastation that it did in people's lives, especially the models," Pauling said of his time as a producer. "I was recruiting brand-new girls and I would watch them go from a college student to a broken drug user."

After four years of contact with the ministers at the anti-pornography Web site xxxchurch.com — who reached out to him during his time in the business — he said he realized that his life in pornography was "empty."

Now he is in seminary, studying to become a minister himself, and he travels the country sharing his story and helping those struggling with an addiction to pornography.

Bringing Pauling to Pocono Community Church was a perfect companion to the church's current sermon series on sex, Crosby said.

"The whole gist of the series is we're resolving to get God's perspective on sex and expose the lies of the enemy and how it relates to this," Crosby said. "(Sunday) we're talking about how no matter what you've done, who you've done it with, where you've been or what you've come through that God's healing power and grace is sufficient."

That's where Pauling's story resonates. He said that in September 2006, he left a meeting with representatives from Playboy where he was offered a $4,000-a-day job.

He felt God come into his life and he walked away from his pornography production business and the $500,000 a year he was making.

"My point is not to legislate porn out of business or to shut it down, just to educate people because people are intelligent and they can make their own choices," he said. "I think it's going to be education and not legislation that's going to change people's hearts."

Having an open discussion about pornography among more than 100 men — in a church — is a foreign concept for many, Crosby said, but having an honest discussion about sex should be important.

"I got a pretty scathing e-mail last night from an individual saying, 'How could you do this? How could you talk about it in church?'" Crosby said. "If you read the Gospels, Jesus embraced the porn stars and prostitutes of his day. They called him a friend of sinners. I think an event like this might very well define our ministry here at PCC. We're able to embrace people and subjects that have been formerly taboo in the church."

The sermon series will conclude today at the Pocono Community Church with services at 8:30, 10 and 11:30 a.m. at the church on Route 611 north of Mount Pocono.

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